LondonRascal

Learning and new ideas... Thank you everyone who contributes on this thread. I have been doing a little more than the You Tube/Google thing and been reading actual books about DC Electrics and wiring. What a rabbit hole this is once you get into it deeply, but fascinating stuff all the same. I have had a look at my Alternator on Trixie, and boy is it in a tight place. Most of these little boats in hire and that I have previously seen for sale privately have engines between 28Hp and 33Hp. The model for sale through Richardson's, for example, has bags of room around the engine when I looked into buying that boat. On Trixie with her larger 43Hp engine it has been pushed as far forward as one can to make room for the gear box and prop shaft (which also has a a flexible shaft coupling which reduces vibration/noise). So far as the Alternator - and indeed things like raw water pump are concerned, these are less than 5cm away from the sound insulation that is on the underside of the wooden steps that lead down into the cabin accommodation. Even when you have removed the steps it is a real squeeze, not dissimilar to the layout you might find on a sailing boat where the engine is partially under the steps from the cockpit. The adjuster for the Alternator belt tension seems to have had better days, and some areas are showing signs or corrosion - anyway this is all leading up to me looking at the different options to boost the charging to my battery bank - especially if I am to enlarge such capacity. I was wondering how you would get to the Alternator and remove the same - make the relevant changes and replace. Some systems on the market do need you to remove the Alternator and make a couple of simple changes to the wiring, others replace the Regulator on the rear of the Alternator entirely but they generally all make a change at the point of power generation and then connect to the main unit which houses the brains of the operation. I have now found several manufactures offering an 'all in one' solution that requires nothing changing to the Alternator at all and act not only as a multi-stage DC to DC battery charger but an MPPT Solar Charge Controller. I have seen some pretty fancy stuff for over £800.00, some mid-range at about £300.00 but I am tempted for a 'cheap' solution coming in at £175.00 from Ring Automotive. I am pretty sure despite the well known name this is a generic product badged 'Ring' but at least there is the back up from a well known brand and an instruction manual that is written in real English. Regardless of make, they all work on much the same principle however: You connect the unit to your start battery at one end and your output from the unit heads off to your leisure batteries. A second input shares the common earth but has a separate positive input from a Solar Panel. The Solar Panel input can be used at the same time as the rest of the unit to further increase charge and so does not 'fight' any other inputs. The Alternator begins power generation and heads off to the start battery - only when the voltage passes 14v does the system engage, taking power from the start battery and boosting it to up to 30Amps at 14.4v onward to your domestic batteries. From here on it it is monitored both for temperature of the batteries and also goes through multi stage charging process (just as most mains powered battery charger would). This means your domestic battery bank is charged more rapidly and completely than an Alternator alone could, and so the thinking goes, a multi stage charge and a battery bank that is kept at or close to full charge lasts longer. You are not able to discharge the starter battery as the unit does not take any power until the start battery itself is 'full' - and also only once the Alternator is outputting peak voltage, so anything under 14v won't trigger the charging unit. Once the engine is off it also is disengages so power cannot be removed from the starter battery and trickle into the domestic batteries. All seems pretty good, the only issue I can see is effectively you are constantly 'jumping' the domestic batteries from and through the starter battery. I'd imagine that over a period of time the increased load and use is put on the starter battery may shorten its service life verses a system that takes a higher current from the Alternator directly and then feeds this to all batteries - starter and domestic equally. However what I do like is the ease the unit can put put in and equally removed if you changed boats and once the wiring is put back the boat will operate in 'default charging mode' if you want to call it that, meaning you can easily install the unit in a new boat without the hassle of an Alternator needing to be played with. Furthermore, this system seems to have the start battery acting as a balancer so the voltage going to your domestic batteries is constant and smooth - which also means the voltage to appliances when underway will be smooth and not subject to spikes. Now, I could me walking into a right boobie here so any thoughts would be welcome. I attach the manual for the unit I am interested in and link to buy in case I have missed anything obvious that will end up cocking up more than it might fix. RSCDC30 Instructions.pdf Link to buy In other news... I thought I might as well disassemble half the cockpit to see how on earth you could ever get to the heater and back end of the boat around the Transom area. Turns out once the seating is all removed (and the locker tops too) the storage lockers are GRP and effectively just very large boxes. These lift out and are over 3 feet deep, once that is out the way you can easily get to the rudder cable, greaser and bolts that hold the swim platform to the transom. On the port side is the heater controller and heater itself. It is, as expected, an old 1990's D2 model. What bothers me is the air intake for the heater (not the combustion air intake but the air intake for heating) draws directly from the engine bay. Normally this is not an issue, after all when the engine is off there no risk of fumes from a leaking exhaust or blow by from the engine getting sucking into the cabin, but what did cause me concern is the battery box vents into the engine space (which itself vents to the outside). Having had batteries boil and deal with that horrible smell (not to mention any Hydrogen Sulfide in the air) I'd really prefer that any risk of this being sucked into the cabin space be minimized. I am therefore going to get some suitable heater hose and either have the air brought in from the outside through a new vent which would then cause positive air pressure in the cabin space, or re-cycle previous warmed cabin air which would cause neutral air pressure in the cabin space. This is what happens on Independence, where air is sucked in from under the sofa and sent back to the heater to be heated, thus also making the heating a more efficient process. Doing this on Trixie though would need some careful thought of ducting and running it in a confined space, so I am going more towards the less efficient method of outside air being drawn in. I also found two large bags of sand which act as ballast - that is nice to know as this can be removed when my new batteries go in and the batteries therefore won't add too much extra weight and things should be balanced. If she lists just a little to port, I can use those sand bags on the starboard side to help even the distribution of weight. The most strange thing I found was an old, plastic watering can by the rudder stock. It only holds a litre of water but I've kept it as I guess it might come in handy someday like topping up coolant or watering a small herb garden lol.

Taken from Broadland Memories website showing at the time there was a lot of upset about this film. However, what I think the film shows (looking past the playing up to the camera) is a time where the collective 'we' in this country really enjoyed a good, fun holiday and mixed in with people. For myself this takes me back to times on holiday as a child in Devon, Cornwall and Dorset - hotels with no television in the rooms so you had the 'Television Room' and people would mix and talk and laugh and join in more together. On the Broads you would feel all part of the same 'club' and merrily moor up along side and talk about where you had been, what scrapes you'd got into and the like. Pubs would be full of families and kids doing what kids generally should do - run about and mess around (for some reason I always remember bright orange outdoor chairs with a sort of lattice back to them). Grown ups would share stories of where they were from, what they did and there was always need to explain the exact route and road numbers you had taken to get to the boatyard and another man would then interject with a better route that might have only shaved 10 minutes off. The thing is, we seemed to all not think much about was the actual waterways - they were a given, the boats too - so what if it was a bit mucky and a bit bashed about and the batteries only gave you an hours worth of TV in the evening, it was fun and you felt part of something great. It as a real adventure holiday with cosy berths and 'funny' three burner hobs and the smell of matches being struck to light gas heaters or to boil a kettle, oh that brings me right back. That comes through so well in those films and here now, with all our communication in our hands, Facebook Groups, this Forum we seem to have lost that. Kids just stare at phones, parents keep to their little group on their table with very little interaction between people going on. These days we moan about boats not being moored closely enough to each other to allow more boats to get on a mooring, we talk about how good food was (or was not) in a pub and take photos of it, but we don't talk about the quality of the Beer. We post countless photos digitally but then keep so few to ever bother to look back on in a decades time or share with kids growing up now 'that was what it was like in the year 2000' , and above all we just don't seem to interact with strangers who become friends in reality - we do it all in comments and likes on Social Media...Even if we find out that they were posting from a boat 6 down from ourselves. So that is what I feel a great sorry for, the loss of the services, innovation, boatyards, staff, help and choice in cruisers. A real family holiday where anyone from anywhere felt included. Only over the last couple of days I stopped off at Summer Craft, what a perfect trip down memory lane that yard is. Friendly, open and kind people. Old Hoseasons signs up pointing to the services they offer and talking of the many other yards you can expect the same from under the Blue Bird flag. God I miss the late 80's and 90's!

This was done for a number of years to stop the bridge 'stretching' out. In short what was happening was the two sides of the bridge were heading away from the centre span. What I cannot find out anywhere is why did the cross bracing cease? I am no expert but if you stop something moving and then remove the thing stopping it moving surly the original movement can then return - clearly this was a very ugly look having it braced. I found the above out as on Broad Ambition we used to have a book about the Potter Heigham Plan - distributed by the local authority back in the 1970's it spoke of a lot of works to be done in the area and bringing he chalets into line with proper planning for any future works and so on.

You want more work Doug

Great post, and another boat model maker on the Forum too. I have a soft spot for the Lowliner, as a young boy my parents always had 'bath tub' style boats as they were safe and comfy but I always longed after a 'proper' looking boat. We had a then weeks old River Tamar from Stalham Pleasurecraft - this was a huge deal at the time to us, and our first 'Blue Chip' cruiser from Blakes too. It ticked all the boxes - it could get under Wroxham Brridge, but you could also steer it outside, it retained an almost single floor throughout, and had those nie wide side decks to walk along without a high free board. The issues it did have was a lack of easy entry and exit, later semi-resolved with the mark II model with stern door. These were amongst the last of the 'angular' cruisers before Alpha Craft brought us their interpretation of a fly bridge - and it was very curvaceous and since then that is how almsot all boats (Broads or not) have gone with a bow that while pointed never really comes to a point, and windows that have at least one side which has a curve in.

Barton Sunrise Barton fog River Ant tranquility

The first set of Batteries were Multicell Marine, they cost me £79.00 each. They came with a 2 year warranty. When these were ruined in less than 3 months by overcharging, I was told that they are sold all over the Broads but are bought for around £50.00 at trade prices and are not that well made up (the amount of Lead in them and thickness of the plates). The batteries I have now are Vetus branded, and are a lot more robust, They have a lower capacity (105Ah) but have considerable thicker plates and a 5 year warranty. They are also sealed lead-calcium based and cost a lot more than the Multicell's. I know all the batteries are charging okay, having checked each individually. Previously only my cranking battery was taking charge and my domestics were left not getting any charge at all from the Alternator. They remained at 12.4v after 3 days of use which proved they are good. I then had things looked at again and it was then everything was begun over from Alternator back - new wire, regulator on Alternator (which had been found to be melted in areas) and this then feeds into a Victron combiner. Victron state: So really the issue is myself, I have not had any issues with power like the fridge going off, or lights being dull etc. I think I haev been fussing over something that was not really there but I perceived to be there based on lack of patience.

Currently sat in Osasis (Stalham) waiting for my Curry and reading up on here. I have been looking at the Stirling stuff today and it looks okay. I know their stuff works well but it always comes over from the design to the manual and how they are written as home brew kit that somehow is on the mass market. Mastervolt do an all in one fancy Alternator with duel fans and a more compact overall size that has a charge booster unit all in. Of course this costs double the Stirling product but I guess you are getting a new Alternator with a big increase in capcity. ‭I’ve also had a look at some seriously cool water cooled Alternators usually found in high end cars. Then I remembered this is meant to be budget boating. what puzzles me is how I will have a good amperage going in to the battery as expected after an evenings discharge but this seems to fall off pretty quickly because my voltage is rising too. By the time the battery has got to 13.2v the Alternator is in trickle charge mode. That is fine, but it gets to 13.2v in my view very quickly and so you think to yourself “maybe less amps were taken out the battery after all”. But after a short time of stopping the engine the battery voltage falls off - quickly falling to 12.6v - an hour or two later it will be at 12.4v and by morning 12.2v. This is why I find it surprising how rapidly it regains back to 13.v+ after I start the engine and the regulator steps in and eases down the amps going in to recharge. We are all different and want different things. I personally would not take a lead acid battery down below 50% depth of discharge, and would replace them every four years regardless because by then they will no longer be performing as well as when new. It seems maybe I don’t have much of an actual issue just my expectations (Curry has arrived) are a little too high. I think I will just calm down a little and worry a little less. Forgive any spelling mistakes but was in an unusual setting to talk batteries lol

Currently sat in Osasis (Stalham) waiting for my Curry and reading up on here. I have been looking at the Stirling stuff today and it looks okay. I know their stuff works well but it always comes over from the design to the manual and how they are written as home brew kit that somehow is on the mass market. Mastervolt do an all in one fancy Alternator with duel fans and a more compact overall size that has a charge booster unit all in. Of course this costs double the Stirling product but I guess you are getting a new Alternator with a big increase in capcity. ‭I’ve also had a look at some seriously cool water cooled Alternators usually found in high end cars. Then I remembered this is meant to be budget boating. what puzzles me is how I will have a good amperage going in to the battery as expected after an evenings discharge but this seems to fall off pretty quickly because my voltage is rising too. By the time the battery has got to 13.2v the Alternator is in trickle charge mode. That is fine, but it gets to 13.2v in my view very quickly and so you think to yourself “maybe less amps were taken out the battery after all”. But after a short time of stopping the engine the battery voltage falls off - quickly falling to 12.6v - an hour or two later it will be at 12.4v and by morning 12.2v. This is why I find it surprising how rapidly it regains back to 13.v+ after I start the engine and the regulator steps in and eases down the amps going in to recharge. We are all different and want different things. I personally would not take a lead acid battery down below 50% depth of discharge, and would replace them every four years regardless because by then they will no longer be performing as well as when new. It seems maybe I don’t have much of an actual issue just my expectations (Curry has arrived) are a little too high. I think I will just calm down a little and worry a little less. Forgive any spelling mistakes but was in an unusual setting to talk batteries lol

Hi Ray.. Small world eh? I’m sorry we did not get to talk a little. I’m sure our paths will cross again

.. I was going to do B&W but opted for a retrolux filter instead which seemed to add character of an old slightly yellowed post card from the era.

Just online going through Brian Wards when I look up and see these two old ladies of the Broads, on Barton Broad. Countess of Light and Spark of Light. Both wonderfully restored - have them in Black & White ans you’d think you’ve travelled back in time. Beautiful.

Today I learnt something...An Alternator is not a battery charger. I never knew that but it all makes sense when it was explained to me. You see in a car you have a single battery and that battery main use is to start the car. You can of course use power from it when the engine is not running to use the radio for example, or interior lights. When you start the car a short but sudden high amperage is taken from the battery (if your car starts with minimal cranking) and the Alternator will then kick in and do two things. Firstly it then takes over as the generator of all power the car may use - lights, fan, onboard electronics and the battery acts as an electrical load-balancer. Over and above the loads put on the Alternator by the cars electrical system, a small charge is sent to re-charge the cars battery and after a modest period of time the battery will once again be full ready for the next time it is called upon. On Trixie, like many boats out there I have three batteries. Two for my 12v domestics and one to start the engine. The engine start battery is isolated from the domestic batteries so you always would have power to start the engine even if you have run down the domestics. All pretty simple. Thing is in the hot weather we have had recently my fridge has been running a lot more - every 20 minutes or so, and its not the most efficient drawing about 8Amps. Add in some light use, pumps and TV and the other day I had consumed 72Ah Despite having over 200Ah of capacity my actual usable capacity is 130Ah if I do not want to discharge my batteries by more than 50% (and I am trying not to do that). I then cruised from Barton Broad to Wroxham and then from Wroxham back to Barton Broad, turned around and headed back to near How Hill. This as you can imagine amounted to a lot of hours of engine run time - yet I had not put back all those 72Ah's I'd taken out of the batteries. I thought I had a lingering issue still so sent of a detailed email to Shaun at NYA explaining the voltages and amperage readings I had taken and how many hours I had run the engine for and so on and felt maybe my Alternator was, after all on the way out. Within a short time he was on the phone going over the fact the Alternator was a bit tired but was still able to put out a good 55Amps, maybe more and the brushes were checked and found to be in good order. It had a brand new regulator put on, and then a smart battery combiner and there should therefore be no reason it would not be performing. The fact when first started up it provided over 20Amps showed this, and as the voltage passed 13v so the amperage dropped right back as it should. Everything was in fact working just as it should do. The 'issue' was my expectations. There are thousands of boats just like mine out there, some in in hire fleets and others in private ownership and since most boats have no monitoring of what voltage and amperage's are being generated or consumed, many people never ever get fully charged batteries simply because there is not enough time the engine is run to replenish that which was used when the engine was not being run and the more is taken the worse it gets and you are none the wiser to this going on. Since I can monitor things I find myself ever watchful of this screen. I have three choices. 1) I run the engine for more hours to generate more electrically from the Alternator to replenish the extra amps that I have used up out the batteries. 2) I connect wherever possible to shore power whereby my battery charger will re-charge the battery bank in about 3 hours. 3) I buy and have fitted a Smart Alternator Charge Booster, or a 'Battery to Battery Charger'. A Smart Alternator Charge Booster removes all the regulation from the Alternator and 'fools' the Alternator to effectively give all it has got - the Smart Alternator Charge Booster takes over and is the middle man between the batteries and the Alternator itself and acts just as a mains powered battery charger - often re-charging in different stages, a lot of amps, less amps and then a trickle charge to float voltage. The only issue with such a system is the Alternator is worked constantly at almost full capacity and will generate more heat, the more heat is generates and that is around an Alternator the less efficient it becomes and eventually the additional load/heat will shorten the working life of an Alternator. On the plus side your battery bank get charged properly, and quickly and you run your engine less putting less wear on ti and burning less fuel. It seems as if it is something as broad as it is long and am currently looking at some Sterling products. Since most boats have no such device fitted, and also few have a way to see at a glance how many amps have been removed from the battery bank, how many are going back in and so on it is akin to having a water tank without a gauge - you just are hoping.

The return passage:

The short answer is no, as once uploaded on Facebook it is only there to be seen. However, I do have the video filmed from on BA that was sent to me over WhatsApp - issue here is getting it off my phone and up on You Tube as if I simply post it here it will use valuable space on the NBN Servers. I will see if there is a You Tube App that allows you to upload to from your phone. Edited: No App required is built in to the forwarding options on an iPhone :)

I have had some more time to go over things, and the net result is I have a lot of options I could go down but this was meant to be a cost effective solution to a mistake I made in my order. There are solutions to charging a 24v battery bank and a 12v battery bank off one 12v Alternator. Basically some fancy tech treats everything as 12v until you call on a power source requiring 24v when it will then series the batteries to create the 24v output. Once the power output demand is removed, it reverts back to a 12v parallel battery bank. However the above solution costs a lots and this was meant to be a cheaper solution to buying a new and correct voltage Inverter. I have decided the best bet is just do as I was all along and have three batteries for my domestics and one for my engine start battery. Connect to the three domestic batteries and buy a new 12v 1500w Inverter and be done with it. I have therefore ordered the correct Inverter and my problems have ceased. I do now have a nice paper weight being the 24v Inverter. I am no expert by the way and all this was ordered a good while ago and I made some mistakes on the Amazon App at the time, which is easy thing to do when you are doing this late at night and suddenly get the urge to go shopping for lights and an Inverter lol. But seriously, I just post here what is going on - take my post about the Inverter, I had not thought as I tapped it out about the charging of the batteries but that is where hindsight comes in and pondering, not to mention here on the Forum helping along the way too.

Gearing up.. Vaughan, you will be pleased to not that Charlie has had a look at the gear cable and after a bit of a faff about with the securing bolt, got the gear cable off the gear box. The arm on the gear box was found to be very smooth and easy to operate, the Morse controller however still had the initial 'grating' feeling so I suspect this will be helped with some lubrication. I personally find it okay to shift, it is my Mum who has some difficulty at times with the shifting ahead and astern. Errors and solutions.. I had about two months back now gone on one of my ordering sprees with Amazon. I got a a number of nice Brass lights, an LED bulkhead lamp, an Inverter, 10m of 4mm 3 core cable and a Pure Sign Wave 1,500w Inverter. This duly arrived at my parents place and they kept it until a week ago when visited the boat and left it onboard for me. Today I went though it all and found most of the items were not what I had ordered. I then went on to my account and found they were indeed what I had ordered but were still wrong - damn it! Nobody to blame but myself. Firstly the lights I thought I had got were brass sat on a Teak base. This would help cover the old Square D fluorescent light fittings that are in situ. The lights I actually got are a smaller diameter with no Teak base. I cannot send them back and change them since it has been over a month since I actually ordered them but I am not going to spend out again - Norfolk Marine sell the correct style I want, but are £47.00 each so it would soon add up.1 However, the above state of affairs is nothing compared to the mistake I made with the Inverter. I've only ended up with 24v version! Well now it is not as if many people would ever have need of such, since 99% of people have 12v electrics on boats - even Independence has 12v so I cannot re-purpose it onboard her. Again, I cannot return the Inverter as it is past the 30 day window. So what to do? I don't really want to just pay out again for another Inverter that is 12v so I have a cheaper option that will work better in the long run and improve efficiency. I will keep the 24v Inverter, but get two additional leisure batteries and wire them in series to give me 24v. This is half the cost of buying another correct 12v Inverter. It is also not as bad as seems, as I was going to buy one additional battery anyway, this would have meant having a cranking battery and then three 12v batteries to run my domestic power from (and Inverter). I will now have a cranking battery and two batteries that will run my 12v systems and then two additional batteries to run my Inverter only at 24v. Another benefit turns out that if I run the Inverter batteries down too low it won't effect things like my fridge, lighting, pumps and so on from running. Furthermore, because my DC input voltage will be doubled to 24v it will mean my amperage draw from the batteries will be halved and so overall the set up is more efficient than a 12v Inverter since I can run the same wattage appliance for twice the time (in theory). So despite making a bit of a balls up it has come good in the end. Trixie is now due out the water from 3rd September for a number of other things to be done both inside, outside and under the boat - some of the additional updates will be to fit an grated scoop for the raw water inlet under the hull. This will help force more water in and thus help the Impeller do its job and also prevent a lot of the weed getting in. Though I changed the old water strainer for a clear Vetus one, it has still been getting a lot of weed in it since there is just a simple thru-hull that can suck quite a bit in as it turns out.

As you can see, I went on a bit despite feeling awful (I had to stop so often to cough and grab a drink) but yeah, these really were the premium boat of their day, and all these years later continue to shine with their space and useful 'built in' ideas. It is a shame the exterior of these boats is not as looked after as might be. I took think they would make an idea purchase, but not perhaps at the prices they are sold for off hire and if you did, let us say get the boat I hired you'd be straight into hands in pocket. That heater, the lagging around the hot water tank was half missing etc etc but you'd at least have a tank of a boat to begin with and confident in the knowledge if anyone bumped into you they would come off worse every time.

I think it boils down to something pretty simple. Let me go over things and give people some insight: Once you had a bunch of people, spread over different Forum's talking about boating and the Broads. Slowly Facebook became evermore part of our daily lives, and over on the NBN a Page was created. Nothing much if ever was done with it, posted on it and when the ability to share certain content was made available to it from this Forum there was a big backlash - people here did not want anything they may have said, even if a nugget of a post shared to Facebook, the same went for Twitter. All settled back to the usual rythem's and yet something else was also about to 'explode' onto the scene. The Facebook Groups. They had existed for all types of topics in the past, but when Love the Norfolk Broads appeared on the scene it stuck a chord. And as it grew, others joined in too - there are now many Facebook Groups all covering the same topic: the Broads. Between admins there has certainly been a wish to be one with the highest membership count, and somewhere in this soup the NBN got its own Group and for months it sat with a few hundred members and very little going on. Indeed it was sometimes just two or three regular Forum users who might share posts there, a few likes the odd comment it all seemed pretty low key and not on the 'radar' of most members over here on the Forum. Then I got more involved over on the Facebook Group (and page) and set about getting it's membership up. We would not have holiday countdown posts, and we did not need to see countless photos of food etc, but the idea was to try and get the Norfolk Broads Network seen by more people, that would then lead to curiosity about what the Forum was about and the resources available here. There were limitations though - you could not promote the Group directly, and it seemed somehow better with a Facebook Page to have more control over content the NBN wished to post or affiliate itself with. For example, the NBN could comment through it's Facebook Page on a local businesses Facebook Page and with that, so the NBN logo would appear with the comment. It seemed ideal and people could still use the page to share items, photos, stories etc. The problem was (and is) people don't do Pages. I mean, sure they do if it is something like Nike or Tesco why not 'Like' them? But as a community like the NBN is, it just is not working because for it to it requires your grass roots community to easily join in discussions with you and each other and as a person who likes the Facebook Page, you are not notified in the same way as when you are a member of a Facebook Group to new posts made by others - only of new content by the Page owner (i.e the NBN) Furthermore, as someone who has liked the Page, you loose a bunch of tools when you post or comment on a post the Page owner has made. Posting to or commenting on a Facebook Group however is just the same in many ways as posting to your own Timeline or Story on your personal Facebook page and they are so integrated to your own Facebook Feed it is seamless. Facebook likes it like that as Groups are usually communities, not corporate companies etc, they can have Pages - the people can have Groups. A poll was conducted and it was a resounding no to loosing the Group. We still only had about 350 members, so nothing much compared to 3,000+ members on the main Norfolk Broads based Facebook Groups. It also meant the NBN had a something nobody else did. We had a Forum, a Facebook Page and a Facebook Group which was and still is a powerful combination. I soon learnt that I could boost posts through the Facebook Page and this would promulgate to all those who liked the NBN Page, but also to those who did not, but through Facebook's algorithms would get such pop up in their Feeds as they were interested in that sort of thing (boating and the Norfolk Broads etc). This was going well, membership was steadily increasing on the Group while the Page was getting a few more likes. I then took things further when Facebook changed their polices allowing adverts through the Page to promote the Page owners brand/company etc off of Facbeook to an external URL. This was powerful stuff because it meant that I was now able to take paid promotions through the NBN Facebook Page, but the advertisements would target a demographic in the UK and Ireland of that who were members of not only the NBN Facebook Group but the others like it too. This meant that while browsing posts, for example made on Love the Norfolk Broads Facebook Group, you would have an advert appear for the NBN - this would also appear in peoples own Feeds on Facebook simply because they had joined a Group based on the Norfolk Broads. Upon tapping the advert titled 'Learn More' or 'Sign Up Now' this would lead you to this very Forum and from there, you could join using your Facebook credentials so you did not need another username and password - it made the process as simple as possible to get people members here on the Forum. Each time I ran the promotions membership on the Forum went up, conversely membership of the NBN Facebook Group increased too. Before too long I had managed to get more organic reach and did not need to pay for the adverts, and through a separate sticker campaign with local businesses and some key sites with QR codes, people would scan these with their Smartphone and by doing took them to the Forum's mobile website - it was all going pretty well. Today the NBN Facebook Page has 2,015 likes, with 2,007 people choosing to follow the Page - thus get notification when something is posted by the NBN. We (the NBN) last shared content to the Page on 16th July about Bishy Barney Boats, and prior to that was a post on 17th May about the NBN App. Nobody (e.g those who follow or like the page) commented on either these posts. The shared link to the hire boats was seen by 374 people and attracted 3 likes. Hardly a big deal. However, move over to the NBN Facebook Group and today that has 2,345 members (of which 2,051 are active). In the last 28 days it attracted 138 new members, and there have been over 8,000 posts, comments, reactions (likes etc). Every month the membership goes up by over 100 people - that is, however you look at it a big number and a massive community of people all interacting together. With that number of people and that many interactions going on, you miss all the nice stuff , the normal polite comments, because it blends in. But when you get the odd bad one that snowballs and it really stands out. Now I must admit when I first set about growing the Facebook side of things, I did not take into account what may happen if things took off quite as they have, and here we are with an ever growing Facebook Group purely now through organic reach and people finding us without any new promotion. Many of those members are also members of other Norfolk Broads based Facebook Groups, some are also members of this Forum, but many many more are not and purely interact and post through the Group. I think more can be done to once again promote the Forum over on the Group, but one must remember that since the majority of people are using the Group on a mobile device, having to adapt to the Forum be it through the mobile friendly site or our App is not something they will do and might have a looksie, but continue to post and interact on Facebook. So the big question is what to do? The Facebook side of things sites there merrily going alone and costs not a penny. We have thousands of people potentially who know what the NBN logo looks like, but not really I don't think what the rest of the 'Network' is. Conversely we have many sponsors here on the Forum who I think should be encouraged to interact more with the Facebook Group so their help to support our Forum can also allow them more access to our big Facebook membership but that also means Moderators need to take a more 'hands on' approach and when things begin to get out of hand mute a member on the Facebook Group and send a private message to them warning them what they have done wrong and link to our T.O.S. If that member choose to ignore the warning there should be no more, it is removal and blockage from the Group. By so doing it should help to create a better experience for those who use the Group, for businesses whose support the NBN and wish to promote their services with our Facebook members. I also believe there should be a zero tolerance to 'classified adverts' be it a dingy or a fender on the Group, but more use of such a service could b used over here on the Forum - so instead of just removing such a post being able to PM the person and say pop on over here and put our item for sale in the relevant section and hope to gain a donation o the Forums should they sell such through us the Forum. One thing I do not believe can be done is ignore the Facebook members, or the importance and reach the Group has.

Thanks for the help above, but I am pretty sure it is not the cables but the Morse head itself. The reason I say this, is that as you go to move it forward or astern (before any movement is noticed at the gearbox) you can 'feel' in the throttle arm a sort of harshness as if almsot two surfaces are touching each other and grating agaisnt each other. Once over that initial feeling as the throttle arm continues in its travel and engages gear and it goes in pretty smoothly either way. It is really not a struggle to get it in or out of gear it just would make life easier if it was nice and smooth. The head in question is a side mounted type and being in an aft cabin type boat is exposed more to the elements and damp etc. The Chrome on the arm is pitted badly too which is a shame so it may just be the internal mechanism has suffered and needs some grease.

It might have been a bit of a schoolboy error with my blue shed fender episode, but really? I mean come on, that is like page one, point one of boating to check the rope is secured to the cleat before throwing in the mud weight - it could only have gone more wrong if it took Howard in with it having been attached to his foot instead! I now await a suitable gaff by our very own Charlie

Yes a number of things contributed to this, and am awaiting a full report. Suffice to say there was an issue with the battery charger being wrongly wired to begin with - (probably being a DIY install by one of the previous owners) this would not effect the charging output on the DC side, but was found to have some pretty scary wiring to the mains, with wrong fuses used and when under high loads charging the batteries this lead to some melting of the insulation on the wires at the charger but with the incorrect fuse - it of course continued merrily away unchecked. My Alternator regulator was also not functioning as it should, having suffered a partial failure. The Alternator itself was okay (brushes and power generation) so that did not need to be replaced but I now have a new smart regulator from Victron that has taken over matters and will see the battery bank as if one big battery and so bring it all up to voltage, sensing it as it goes and easing off the input voltage and amps as it gets closer to full. From conversations on the phone, it seems that the since wiring leading from the Alternator to the DC distribution panel voltage meter in the cabin had been cut, this left my domestic batteries effectively gaining no direct charge from my Alternator as this disrupted the charging circuit if you will. -Some current would make it into them via the cranking battery which was directly wired from the Alternator and since my cranking battery was not isolated from my domestics, some 'leaked' back into my domestics. I appear to have been able to discharge all batteries if I wanted to through domestic use, not a good set up. Since the Alternator only 'saw' the cranking battery and once it was full (which took a short time) very little current was going anywhere else but the power it was getting was unregulated so, separately this meant I was slowly frying my cranking battery. The above of course would not have 'killed' my domestic batteries though, what was doing that was the fact they were being run very low during usual use - and not getting hardly any re-charge until I plugged in to shore power. At this point the shore powered charger was wired on the DC correctly, but set to the wrong program - the batteries were flooded Lead Acid but the battery charger was was set to a user set program causing it to be pumping in over 15v at 20Amps, not at all good for Lead Acid to be given this kinda of input for hours on end. But what added to this was the charger would firstly see the first battery (cranking) was at full voltage but because the domestics were pulling through amperages it was acting as if there was a dead cell - the smart battery charger therefore never shut off to a float voltage because it would never get to the 'full' capacity, so on it went pumping in higher voltages. Slowly I was not only running my domestics down way below 50% S.O.D but my alternator was killing my cranking battery, which in turn was being pummelled by the shore charger which was leaking voltage into my domestics through the wrong path. It was a total mess someone like myself would not have seen but tracking where wires went and so on it became obvious to someone in the know what was wrong and how to put it right. I had no idea any of that was going on initially, because the battery monitor was not wired with all the negative returns going through its shunt, so effectively I got rouge voltages and amperages being shown - which is what lead me to wonder something was not right - like how come after a night would my Alternator only being shown to be putting out about 8Amps back into my batteries? Also, when I was plugged into shore power why did the reading on the battery charger miss match so much to the reading on the battery monitor? And if I used my Bow Thruster why would my domestic batteries record an 85Amp discharge when it was meant to be only coming off my cranking battery. Anyway, it has taken a lot of time and cost but all is said to be well and working as it should be, the charger configured to the new sealed lead acid batteries, and doing its thing the alternator doing its thing and new wiring having gone in, new fuses where required so nothing like this should happen again. Fingers crossed as I have not been up to the boat myself recently, but I am confident that it is sorted, phew!

A lot of time has been spent recently going over the last push of works to be undertaken on Trixie - some things have gone to the 'that is not actually needed after all pile' and just as the list of works was getting smaller, I have managed to find a bunch more - some of which is a result of late night Amazon shopping two months ago that I had forgotten about but now a car load of items has made its way onboard the boat reminding me. This brings the outstanding items being: To investigate why the Morse lever can be stiff when engaging forward and astern gears. To service the engine, with new oil and fuel filter, an impeller, new alternator belt together with draining the coolant and replacing with fresh. Under high RPM and load (over 2,100RPM - engine will rev to a maximum of 2,800RPM in gear) the engine temperature will go above 95c. This tells me something is amiss with the raw water cooling circuit. I am therefore have the heat exchanger 'tube stack' removed and de-scaled as well as the raw water cooling circuit flushed with suiteable de-scalar too and with the new Impeller and already in place new Vetus 'clear type' weed strainer will hopefully address this issue. Separate to the above is the fact I will lose 150ml to 200ml of coolant after a full day's engine run - there is no steam from the exhaust so I don't think it is ahead gasket going, (or I am hoping it is not) but will have the 'engine bod' get to work on looking at this and trying to figure what is going on. Inspect the stern gland and shaft generally and re-fill with grease. Clean bilge area and inspect float switch operation and bilge pump - replace if required. Replace the pressure release valve on the domestic hot water side which is weeping with a new valve of the correct pressure rating. Replace the virtually new domestic water pump (Jabsco Par Max 2.9 delivering 11 litres per minute with a cut off pressure of 25Psi) with what was originally there (Johnson Aqua Jet WPS 3.5). This will deliver 13 litres per minute at 41Psi which will make showering better and future proof me for installing an electric toilet with fresh water connection for the flush. If anyone may want a virtually unused Jabsco Par Max freshwater pump as described above, please send me a PM and it can be yours for nothing. Inspect the steering system, believed to be cable operated as there is some play in it - I was going to covert to Hydraulic for smooth operation, but am going for simplicity and preventative maintenance now. To fit five new large dome lights with Teak bases. These should just about cover up the existing 'Square D' fluorescent light fittings and reduce my amperage use to a trickle as the new lights will be fitted with LED bulbs. New LED bulkhead light for the heads. Replace wiring in Mast to Anchor Light and Forward Steaming light. Also replace the deck connection, that will be the second one I bought the first left behind in a Cab in Norwich! Fit a new 1,500w Inverter which will draw off three new domestic batteries. The Inverter has a remote control that can be fitted in the cabin. I am considering replacing the aged 12v fridge with a 240v version running off the Inverter. Having read into this the inefficiency one may suffer in this sort of set up verses cost means I could afford almost 5 new batteries for the cost saving of an A++ rated 240v fridge verses a Marine 12v version. And because they consume less amps on 240v than a 12v fridge does, the bit you lose out in converting the DC to AC at the Inverter is smaller than you might think - about 1.8Amps considering my current fridge consumes over 7amps when running it is hardly efficient. Replace all wiring to wind screen wipers and deck fittings - since I lowered the screens to get under the bridges at Yarmouth my wipers have stopped working, and the 'crispy' feel of the wire insulation suggests something has either been snapped or pulled out a connection somewhere. Fit two weather proof USB charging sockets to the helm. Have a new darker red and harder wearing boot line on the boat. Also replace the bright red stripe with a darker red stripe to better match the canopy colour. New seating - re-shaped foam and upholstery New carpeting (Stalham has a lovely little carpet shop that will do marine carpet templates, and whipping) I am going to go for a bathroom type carpet with a an added rubber underlay to assist with sound deadening for the cockpit and a more luxurious thick pile carpet for the interior. Biggest change once that is done will be a new no shoes allowed inside the boat rule being brought in lol.

Thanks for the above, I think the fact I have order 4mm should give me plenty of added capacity then be it in conduit or not, and way over the current installed cable gauge.